Making New Cocobolo Handles/Totes and Knobs for my Hand Planes -A How To

I got a wild hair to upgrade the wood on my Lie Nielsen planes from the stock cherry to cocobolo. There’s always more than one way to get the job done, but I’ll share my way. There’s lots of good pics along the way to help. So here goes.

Safety note: Most all of us are at least mildly allergic to rosewood and other exotics. Where a mask….or you’ll wish you had. Just drilling cocobolo makes my eyes and nose itch.

The Handles:

You’ll want some 1×5” (at least) stock. It needs to be that full inch thick. Quartersawn is preferable. If your remaking handles for a stanley plane, Lee valley has great templates on their site as seen in the background. Since I’m making handles for an LN, I’m just using the old ones as patterns.

I think the best way is to roughly lay them out, then figure out where your gonna drill the holes for the posts. Doing that here:

First drill a hole that is the correct diameter for your brass posts/heads. Drill this down a little ways so you know your into the handle. You’ll finish the depth later. Then drill the post hole all the way down. I picked bit that was even a little bigger than the stock hole- to give myself a little wiggle room. Your gonna need a long bit too. I had to buy one. Do everything you can to drill these straight. However, don’t freak out if it doesn’t come out the bottom perfect center. You can make some adjustments with a rat tail file or something. If you really jack it up, glue a dowel and try again. No one will ever know. UPDATE- I’ve gotten better accuracy by marking carefully and drilling from each edge so the holes meet in the middle. You don’t need a long bit for this.

Now that you have post holes, you can line up the handle or pattern.

Figure out the correct forstner bits for your curves. Most of mine were around 1 1/4”. Then cut of the rest of the waste with a bandsaw, jigsaw, or coping saw. -If you cut these out with paper patterns you should be good. Since I attempted to trace another handle, I had to eyeball and rasp a bit to get the profile just right. -You can save a lot of rasp work with a 1/2” router bit. Notice you only round the sides! And please use a clamp if you do this.

LJ DonW uses and old transitional frame to hold totes still, which is ingenious. Don’t have one of those lying around, so I put a spade bit in the vise for a solid “post.”

Bust out the rasps and files. This is what will make this nice….and not so machine made. Round all the edges further. Make it your own. If your gonna do a lot of these, pick up a Gramercy handle makers rasp. It’s the perfect too for the job. -

Every handle is gonna need countersunk holes for fitting each plane. Just gotta figure what you need and make it happen. Also a good time to finish drill the hole for the brass in the top of the handle to the correct depth.-Handles with a screw at the base can be tricky. My solution to mark the screw hole was to snip the head off a screw and drop it in the threaded hold(pic above). Then push down with the handle in the correct position, marking the bottom kinda like a dowel marker. Drill hole from below. -Unless a guy’s got some fancy right angle drill, you just have to make the coutersinks by hand. -Now lots of sanding. Actually I use a light touch with a random orbital sander 180 grit to get the rasp marks off. For hand sanding, I like to use adhesive back PSA sandpaper because it stick to my hand.

Lookin good. I like to use a coat of danish oil to highlight the figure. Wait a night and seal it the sealcoat (dewaxed shellac). Last some minwax paste wax and buff.

The Knobs:These are gravy for any experienced turner, but here’s how I got ‘em done.

With some 2×2 spindle stock. cut a piece just a hair taller than the old knob. Drill a hold a size or two bigger than your knob screw threads….but don’t drill it all the way through! If you do your drive center will wobble. I went about 3/4 the way down, then finished the hole with a small pilot bit to give my opposite center for the lathe. -Get it round. Use a caliper to measure the largest diameter of the knob, get it all down to that. -

Mark that “fat” area of the knob, then taper down to the measurement of the base of the knob. -Then carve out the cove to the correct diameter. All the while I just kept eyeballing the old knob for the correct profile. This is really the key to not having to part off any waste. To get the roundover I needed near the livecenter, I use a carbide detailer. Normally you’d never want to cut with the side of the diamond on this tool, but notice it is tilted in toward the piece in a scraping action. Then sand it up. If the knob is a bit tall, take some off the base on a disc sander. Last drill the neccessary countersinks in the top and bottom.

Same finish regimine.

Bam!

It was a lot of work making all these, but they look great. They’re not machine perfect. They feel more custom made- which I like. I’ll post them up as a project when I can.

Hope the blog helps anyone who’s got the cocobolo itch.

Take care knotheads, Red

-- "At the end of the day, try and make it beautiful....because the world is full of ugly." Konrad Sauer